They spread their message at last weekend’s Eudora Fest and Tuesday’s Bill Cosby performance on the Kansas University campus. They’ll be at Saturday’s KU-Kansas State football game, handing out fliers.

The Justice for Children Committee, a grass-roots group working to unseat Douglas County District Judge Paula B. Martin, has been blitzing the county in recent days with fliers, mailings and bright orange stickers urging people to vote against Martin in the Nov. 2 retention election.

It’s all coming from a political-action committee that wasn’t officially organized until Wednesday and is led by angry mothers without much political experience.

“Most of us aren’t in-your-face types,” said committee chairwoman Karin Drees of Lawrence, a stay-at-home mother of four. “We’re not out for blood. We’re just here to try to let people know what we see is going on.”

Drees said the group, with about 100 members on its mailing list, was drawing its political know-how from people’s collective knowledge — not any one source.

“One person worked with the Democrats and did some door-to-door. Somebody did some mailers at one point,” she said. “It’s basically everybody ransacking their brains for everything that we know about running a campaign.”

What they have in common is anger about Martin’s decision to grant probation, 60 days in jail and community service to two 18-year-olds convicted of having sex with an intoxicated 13-year-old girl in June 2003 — a crime classified as rape under Kansas law. Martin granted a similar sentence to a 28-year-old Lawrence man who entered a plea of aggravated indecent liberties with a child in the same case.

Martin’s supporters are planning to launch a group of their own Saturday.

“It will be a balanced look at Judge Martin and her record, and in particular the initial cases that were raised,” said Dan Watkins, a Lawrence attorney and longtime friend of Martin’s.

Becca Booth and Karin Drees, top right, elaborate after a news conference on why they want to unseat Douglas County District Judge Paula Martin. The Justice for Children Committee wants Martin to be voted off the bench in November because of the lightened sentences she gave in a recent statutory rape case. From bottom left, attorneys Michael Clarke and John Frydman listened to Booth on Wednesday.

Already, the anti-Martin group has met with opposition from an informal group of attorneys, including several defense attorneys.

Six attorneys who support Martin attended a news conference staged by the anti-Martin group Thursday afternoon at the public library, but Martin’s supporters were not allowed to ask questions during the session. One, Michael Clarke, was the defense attorney for Brian Ussery, one of the 18-year-olds convicted in the rape case. Clarke’s presence angered the 13-year-old victim’s mother.

“I find it disgusting you would be here today,” she told Clarke.

Members of the anti-Martin group called the news conference to detail what they said was a “pattern of soft sentencing” by the judge.

“This movement is not about one case,” said Tricia Masenthin, a committee member.

She said research of Kansas Court of Appeals cases showed Martin had been reversed on appeal eight times since 1996. Three of those reversals occurred in civil, not criminal cases.

Judges Robert Fairchild, Michael Malone and Jean Shepherd have had no cases reversed in that time, the group claims. Jack Murphy has had two, according to the group’s figures.

“The numbers are kind of skewed there,” Drees said. “There’s enough to make you say ‘If there’s smoke, maybe there’s fire.'”

6News video: Groups clash over campaign to oust judge (10-07-04) 6News video: New developments surface in rape cases (10-05-04) Departure Memorandum(PDF) Order of Assignment (PDF) Motion for Departure (PDF) Statutory rape trial begins with teen’s testimony (10-06-04) Teenager drops rape allegation (10-06-04) Lawyers stand up for judge (09-30-04) Judge’s ouster would be rare (09-29-04) Movement against judge organizes (09-22-04) More about Judge Paula Martin

Martin supporter Watkins said he thought Martin’s record on appeal should be put into context.

“I know that Judge Martin has handled over 15,000 cases in the past 10 years, and so the percentage which have been reversed or remanded is minuscule,” Watkins said. “Relative to the number of cases she’s handled, her record is very good.”

List of examples

Also Thursday, the committee released a list of 15 cases since 1997 in which the group said Martin gave lenient sentences to defendants, set bail too low or wrongly dismissed charges against criminal defendants.

Those examples included a five-year sentence in 1998 for Tyrone Edwards, who could have received 28 years in prison for having sex with a 13-year-old girl one day after being released from state prison on unrelated charges. And in May 1997, Gabriel Patterson — free on $7,500 bond set by Martin — fled the state shortly before his trial on a rape charge. Patterson was caught and later convicted of aggravated sexual battery.

In a third case, Martin released a man accused of raping his granddaughter without bail before trial.

“We will no longer stand for injustice,” said Brian Budenosky, a committee member. “We will protect our children.”

The full list of cases can be found at the committee’s Web site, www.geocities.com/justiceforchildrencommittee.

“It does not tell the whole story,” said Lawrence defense attorney John Frydman, a Martin supporter who attended the news conference, referring to the list. “There’s no context.”

Problematic cases?

A review by the Journal-World found that some of the cases the committee saw as problematic were influenced in large part by plea negotiations and prosecutors’ input. For example:

• The committee criticized a 30-day sentence given to Helushka Wells by Martin in 1999. Wells had been convicted of one count of aiding a felon and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery in the June 1997 death of Robert Baldwin.

But prosecutors at the time said Wells’ testimony had helped them convict Deon Hale, Baldwin’s killer. Wells, who helped dump Baldwin’s body on Interstate 70, testified in exchange for immunity.

“Without his testimony, the state would not have much evidence against Mr. Hale,” then-Asst. Dist. Atty. Jerry Little told Martin during a hearing in March 1999.

• The committee also listed the three-year probation sentence, instead of 32 months in prison, Martin gave Joshua Mattocks. He had pleaded no contest to a charge of involuntary manslaughter for running over and killing John Lowe, a homeless man who had been sleeping in an alley near downtown Lawrence.

But at Mattocks’ sentencing, Martin said she wanted to give him a prison sentence.

“Mr. Mattocks, I will tell you I have thought about you a lot, I’ve thought about Mr. Lowe a lot and I’ve thought about the facts of this case more than any of you can imagine,” Martin said at the May 2001 sentencing. “I came in here today ready to send you to prison.”

She didn’t, though, because assistant Dist. Atty. Dave Zabel said Lowe’s five siblings didn’t want a prison sentence. Zabel said he talked with each sibling, spread out across the country, at every point of the legal process.

“They want (Mattocks) to live his life for two people,” himself and John Lowe, Zabel told Martin at the hearing. “They don’t want him to throw his life away.”

Aiming to educate

So far, the anti-Martin group has raised roughly $1,000 from a wide range of people, said treasurer Becca Booth. Like Drees, Booth is a stay-at-home mother.

The group won’t have to file a campaign-finance report with the state until Oct. 25. Its statement of organization was filed Wednesday with the Secretary of State’s Office.

“Our goal is to educate the Douglas County electorate so that a majority vote of ‘no’ is achieved in the retention question concerning Judge Paula Martin of Division 5, District 7,” the form states.